Customer Complaints Data

July - December 2010

Lloyds Banking Group welcomes the FSA’s ongoing mission to place all customer complaints in the public arena.

Our published numbers, for the second half of 2010, show an increase of 14% from 288,717 to 329,761. We know we still have a lot of work to do in this area to reduce complaints levels and to ensure that our customers know that we’re committed to improving our service.

This increase in complaints numbers is due to a rise in Payment Protection Insurance (PPI) complaints. Taking out the PPI complaints will give us a clearer view of the progress we are making. Looking at banking complaints for this period, we have achieved a significant 12% reduction in volume. This downward trend demonstrates that the steps we are taking to improve our complaint handling are having a positive effect.

“As Customer Services Director for Lloyds Banking Group I have responsibility for improving the customer complaints experience. Our customers tell us the two areas we need to improve are the length of time it takes to resolve complaints and the perception that the bank is not taking sufficient ownership of them. We are committed to getting this right”.

Martin Dodd, Customer Services Director,Lloyds Banking Group

Improving our complaint handling

We have introduced a specialist team to dramatically improve the way that we handle complaints:

1. Quicker complaint resolution by a specialist teamThe first staff member to be contacted by a customer will always try to resolve the complaint immediately. But if they do not have the knowledge to do this, they can call on our new specialist Phone a Friend Team (PAF) for immediate, practical advice on how best to do so. To improve ownership of complaints these specialist complaint handlers are in place right across the UK.

2. Named case workers for customersIn instances where the first staff member to be contacted with a customer complaint cannot resolve the problem immediately themselves, or with the direct support of the Phone a Friend Team, then the customer will be put in touch with a named individual from PAF.

At the same time, the customer will be provided with an estimate of how long the complaint will take to resolve and when to expect further contact from their case worker with an update. This means customers will not need to check on the status of their complaint nor re-explain the situation to further staff members.

Improving our customers’ complaint experience

The Phone a Friend team started work in October 2010 and it has already made a difference to our customers’ complaint experience.

Our 40,000 customer-facing and call-centre staff have also received extra, in-depth training on the handling of customer complaints.

Our top 100 leaders in the retail bank are spending one day, per month, working in complaint handling - dealing with complaints and experiencing our customers’ frustrations first hand. We believe this programme will help us fix the things that cause complaints in the first place.

Results of our new approach to complaint handling

Speed of responseWe are now resolving 90% of customers’ complaints at first touch, in branch or over the telephone, with the help of the Phone a Friend team.

Complaints reductionWe have reduced the number of FSA banking complaints per 1,000 accounts from 2.4 to 2.1 – that’s a reduction of 12% compared to the first half of 2010 and equates to 20,760 less complaints. Much of this improvement was achieved in the final quarter of 2010 when the Phone a Friend team was introduced.

Customer ExperienceOverall, we have improved our customers’ view of complaint handling by 10 points in 2010 – this is measured by Net Promoter Score, the way we evaluate how our customers asses us.

This downward trend demonstrates that our new approach to complaints handling is having a positive effect and moving us in the right direction.In 2011, we will maintain our focus on fixing the things which cause customers to complain in the first place, and we will continue to resolve the complaints we do receive intelligently and promptly.

More information…

To help you interpret the information we have provided a glossary of terms which explains key references in the publication reports.

The Financial Ombudsman Service publishes separate complaints data on the number of complaints referred to it by individual firms.

To view complaints information for any firm of Lloyds Banking Group reporting more than 500 reportable complaints in the previous six month reporting period you can click on the links below each of the brands.

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Lloyds Bank plc and Bank of Scotland plc (members of Lloyds Banking Group), are authorised by the Prudential Regulation Authority and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority and the Prudential Regulation Authority. Authorisation can be checked on the Financial Services Register at: www.fca.org.uk